Formerly easyridersofhann.blogspot.com and once upon a time a tale of three gamers blog, now my painting blog and general 40k musings

Monday, 11 March 2013

Death Company Magnetised Backpacks and Jetpacks WIP

Managed to pick up a couple of death company boxes at a local outlet that normally gives 10% off GW anyway but in January also does 15% off everything in store on certain days. 10 man death company squad for just over £30.....that is almost value for money!

Anyway, wanted to get the most out of the box sets I have magnetised the backpacks and the jump packs so they can be used in either configuration. I love the fluff behind death company and the models look fantastic, the detail level is brilliant.

So we have the squad work in progress pic

And a couple of pics of the magnets.

The magnets are usual miniature modelling rare earth magnets. I bought mine a few years ago from http://e-magnetsuk.com/ The service from them was excellent, I have ordered several sets from them and they always arrived the next day. What is nice is that I am seeing them more frequently in local hobby stores now so the availability certainly in my area at least is more main stream these days. The processing of fitting the magnets was rather fiddly.

For the position on the figure body I cut off the nub that would usually glue into the backpack or jump pack and then very carefully drilled a 1mm pilot hole using a pin vice in the middle of where that nub used to be. I actually used a seam scraping tool as a reamer to position where I wanted the pilot hole. I then drilled using a 3mm bit (size of the magnet) and set the magnet using superglue making sure all the polarities where the same.

The magnets I used actually fitted perfectly inside the backpack as though they had been designed to go there. The jumppack required more work however. The entire recess that would usually house the plastic nub was filled with Vallejo model putty and allowed to cure thoroughly. This had to be repeated in a few stages adding a bit more putty each time to allow a proper cure. I then repeated the process used on the main body by drilling a pilot hole then a 3mm hole before gluing the magnets in place making sure the polarities corresponded to the main body. It was a fiddly process but worth doing to get the versatility of having both options.

The squad should be finished in the next couple of days so stay tuned for some finished pics.